Ok, this article is in part me being snarky, but a friend said I should make fun
of the situation. I figured I could also make an article for InfoSec educators
out of it. At one point before I was forced to change majors (granted, for a
better career), an instructor referred to me with the statement: “Student
asserts and excuses personal and professional anti-law and anti-ethics
statements and positions in class; not for beneficial class discussion”. I’m not
100% sure why, maybe because I stated that not all laws are ethical and that sometime
the ethical thing to do is break the law, maybe it is because I asked about laws
involving technology and hacking (a word that freaks out some people). There’s
lots more about that in my
IU Southeast Business School write-up.
One thing that struck me about my former “Business Law and Ethics” professor,
Linda Christiansen, was that she actually defined critical thinking in her
syllabus as:

“Critical thinking is reasonably and reflectively deciding what to believe or
do; thinking that explicitly aims at well-founded judgment.” ~Linda Christiansen

(Update Note: Seems to have been removed removed by the 2013 version of the
syllabus. As a matter of fact, she does not even define it in the newer
syllabus, which considering her knowledge of it, is probably for the best.)

Sounds like a good definition overall. No citation was given, and granted it
is just a syllabus, but bare with me. Since my personal experience with her lead me
to believe Linda did not understand what critical thinking was, I suspected
something might be up. I did some Internet searches on substrings and found:

“Critical thinking is "reasonably and reflectively deciding what to believe or
do.""

Which was cited as coming from “Ennis (1985)” in many references to the
definition (Example
Search
I still have not found what exact work this is). I found this also:

“thinking that explicitly aims at well-founded judgment”

Which gets cited as “(Elder and Paul, 2007)” (Example
Search,
this may be the
direct link,
and yes, I know I’m not using a proper citation form, but I am giving credit and
I think this is easier to follow for an online article).

It looked like she just jammed two other sources’ definitions together, but hey,
there are only so many ways you can define “critical thinking”, and maybe this
is such a common phrasing there was no need to cite (“hello world” for Ethics)?
The “critical thinking” example has a lot of room for doubt, maybe she wrote it.
This got me thinking, if you don’t have access to a service like Turnitin, how
do you use just Google and a few tools? While I was at it, I figured I’d check
out her definition of Ethics. I decided to use her syllabus as practice for
finding plagiarism online (there is a link at the bottom of this page to her
syllabus if you want to play along). From her syllabus:

“Ethics is the study and practice of decisions about what is good or right.
Ethics guide us when we are wondering about what we should be doing in a
particular situation. Business ethics is an application of ethics to the
special problems and opportunities experienced by businesspeople.” ~Linda
Christiansen

Sorry to link to likely pirated content. Based on the contents, and what seems
to be the ISBN number 0073524913, I think this is a chapter of Dynamic Business
Law by Nancy Kubasek, M. Neil Browne, Andrea Giampetro-Meyer, Linda Barkacs, Dan
Herron, Carrie Williamson, Lucien Dhooge (Published January 4, 2008). I don’t
see my old teacher listed as an editor, but maybe the credit is not there and
she just did some editing? This is the definition of ethics from that book:

“Ethics is the study and practice of decisions about what is good, or right.
Ethics guides us

when we are wondering what we should be doing in a particular situation.
Business ethics

is the application of ethics to the special problems and opportunities
experienced by business-people.”

~Dynamic Business Law

Humm. See, this is something I would not have found if I was searching for whole
sentences, each line has at least one character different from the first. Tip:
There are times when an exact string is not what you want to search for. This
actually gets more technical than you might first suspect. Some students have
apparently been using
homoglyphs
in Unicode to defeat string searches. Take a few to Latin “e”s and “o”s and
replace them with Cyrillic versions. My understanding is that Turnitin
normalizes some of these Unicode issues, but check out this
talk on Unicode
and you will see there are a lot of options. Ok, how about how she defines what
“ethical dilemmas” are?:

“These problems and opportunities present businesses with ethical choices, each
of which have advantages and disadvantages. An ethical dilemma is a dilemma or
choice for which many times no clear right decision is available. The dilemma
has multiple potential solutions, none of which is altogether superior. Social
responsibility of business consists of the collection of expectations that the
global community imposes on its firms.”

~Linda Christiansen

(Update Note: Still in 2013 version of syllabus, largely unchanged.)

and:

“Such questions present businesses with ethical choices, each of which has
advantages

and disadvantages. An ethical dilemma is a problem about what a firm should do
for

which no clear, right decision is available. Reasonable people can expect to
disagree about

optimal solutions to ethical dilemmas.”

~Dynamic Business Law

Ok, that one is not as clear, but it’s interesting to see what is changed (or it
might all be original), just to give insight into the workings of one’s mind as
to what is important. For the homoglyphs,
Elizabeth J. Pyatt's post
has covered it well, using visual spell check and changing the font may work for
spotting this Unicode technique. I’ll add to that by mentioning that saving the
paper as an ANSI file may also make it obvious when letters start to disappear
(depending on the conversion), and spotting odd Unicode in custom software is
easy (like noticing 5 different kinds of whitespace and non-printable characters
such as Unicode tags in the range U+E0000-UE0074). Synonyms though are a little
harder in some ways for a computer to detect (though they may be easier for
humans). If someone does a global replace of the word “problem” for “dilemma” or
“dog” for “canine” the only way to tell is to read for how well the words flow
together, see if they sound out of place even if technically right (this is also
error prone I imagine due to human judgment). I also imagine most student
plagiarists would be too lazy to take the time to proofread a cooked paper again
to be sure that it reads right (I like that term, I’m going to start to refer to
electronically mangled original text as Unicode cooked, Synonym cooked and
Sentence cooked text). The point of plagiarism, at least for most students, is
to save time. Like I said, I’m not sure at all if the quote above counts as
plagiarism, at least not a totally horrific kind. I did find other sentences
though:

“Much of the litigation and liability arising in business is avoidable. Many
times the only difference between an employer being sued or not is a manager or
supervisor who recognizes that the decision being made may lead to unnecessary
litigation and thus avoids it. “

~Linda Christiansen

(Update Note: Still in 2013 version of syllabus, largely unchanged.)

“Much of the litigation and liability arising in the area covered by these
statistics is avoidable. Many times the only difference between an employer
being sued or not is a manager or supervisor who recognizes that the decision
being made may lead to unnecessary litigation and thus avoids it.”

~

HRMD 620: Employee Relation Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander and Laura Hartman,
University of Maryland University College 2007

The thing about the above sentences is, while the first two in each set are
similar, and the second two are both the same, much of the surrounding text it
not. I could think of a technique I’ll call “sentence cooking” when you write a
piece of software to interleave different works of a similar theme, then proof
read it, but you would still have to edit for flow. This last example might be
better referred to as “venetian cooked” as maybe a longer work was cut down by
removing the less needed sentences in between, because just a little ways down
in the same document we have:

“Management often strays from appropriate considerations and treads on thin
legal ice. Many of these mistakes made are based on ignorance rather than
malice. Often it is a result of simply not knowing that a decision was being
handled incorrectly.”

~Linda Christiansen

(Update Note: First two sentences in the 2013 version are the same, last one
was dropped.)

“We have seen how management most often strays from appropriate considerations
and treads on thin legal ice, exposing it to potential increased liability. We
came to realize that many of the mistakes were based on ignorance rather than
malice. Often it was simply not knowing that a decision was being handled
incorrectly.”

~

HRMD 620: Employee Relation Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander and Laura Hartman,
University of Maryland University College 2007

Additionally, this course provides a basis for making decisions in “gray areas”
through the study of social and political movements, legislative history, and
case law.

~Linda Christiansen

(Update Note Seems to have been removed by the 2013 version, but exists in
others.)

“In an effort to best inform employers of the reasoning behind legal
requirements and to provide a basis for making decisions in “gray areas,” we
often provide background in relevant social or political movements, or both, as
well as in legislative history and other relevant considerations.”

~

HRMD 620: Employee Relation Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander and Laura Hartman,
University of Maryland University College 2007

The facts of a case suggest and issue. The key to issue spotting is being able
to identify which facts raise which issues. Because of the complexity of the
law, the elimination or addition of one fact (such as time of day or whether
someone was drinking) can eliminate or add issues to a case thereby raising an
entirely different rule of law. “

~Linda Christiansen

“Issue Spotting - The First Step

"The facts of a case suggest an Issue."

The key to issue spotting is being able to identify which facts raise which
issues. Because of the complexity of the law, the elimination or addition of one
fact (such as time of day or whether someone was drinking) can eliminate or add
issues to a case thereby raising an entirely different rule of law.”

The issue is covered by a rule of law. Simply put, the rule is the law. The
rule could be common law that was developed by the courts or a law that was
passed by the legislature.

For every case you read, extract the rule of law by breaking it down into its
component parts. In other words, ask the question: what elements of the rule
must be proven in order for the rule to hold true?

• What are the elements that prove the rule?

• What are the exceptions to the rule?

• From what authority does it come?

• What’s the underlying public policy (if any) behind the rule?

~Linda Christiansen

Rule - What is the Law?

"The issue is covered by a Rule of law."

Simply put, the rule is the law. The rule could be common law that was developed
by the courts or a law that was passed by the legislature.

For every case you read, extract the rule of law by breaking it down into its
component parts. In other words, ask the question: what elements of the rule
must be proven in order for the rule to hold true?

Questions to ask when reading a case:

What are the elements that prove the rule?

What are the exceptions to the rule?

From what authority does it come? Common law, statute, new rule?

What's the underlying public policy behind the rule?

Are there social considerations?

~

http://www.lawnerds.com/guide/irac.html

ANALYSIS

Do not stop at the rule of law. Compare the facts to the rule to form the
analysis. This important area is really relatively simple. For every relevant
fact, you need to ask whether the fact helps to prove or disprove the rule. If a
rule requires that a certain circumstance is present in order for the rule to
apply, then the absence of that circumstance helps you reach the conclusion that
the rule does not apply.

You will be tested to see whether you can apply the law to a given set of
circumstances. The analysis is the most important element of IRAC since this is
where the real thinking happens.

• Which facts help prove which elements of the rule?

• Why are certain facts relevant?

• How do these facts satisfy this rule?

• What types of facts are applied to the rule?

• How do these facts further the public policy underlying this rule?

• What's the counter-argument for another solution?

~Linda Christiansen

Analysis - The Art of Lawyering

"Compare the facts to the rule to form the Analysis."

This important area is really relatively simple. For every relevant fact, you
need to ask whether the fact helps to prove or disprove the rule. If a rule
requires that a certain circumstance is present in order for the rule to apply,
then the absence of that circumstance helps you reach the conclusion that the
rule does not apply. For instance, all contracts for the sale of goods over $500
have to be in writing. Consequently, in analyzing a contract for the sale of
goods, you apply the presence or absence of two facts - worth of good and
whether there's a written contract - in order to see whether the rule holds
true.

The biggest mistake people make in exam writing is to spot the issue and just
recite the rule without doing the analysis. Most professors know that you can
look up the law, but they want to test whether you can apply the law to a given
set of circumstances. The analysis is the most important element of IRAC since
this is where the real thinking happens.

Questions to ask when reading a case:

Which facts help prove which elements of the rule?

Why are certain facts relevant?

How do these facts satisfy this rule?

What types of facts are applied to the rule?

How do these facts further the public policy underlying this rule?

What's the counter-argument for another solution?

~

http://www.lawnerds.com/guide/irac.html

CONCLUSION

<the first sentences were not much alike>

If a rule does not apply, don't fall into the trap of being conclusive on a
party's liability or innocence. There may be another rule by which the party
should be judged. In other words you should conclude as to whether the rule
applies, but you shouldn't be conclusive as to whether some other result is
probable. In that case, you need to raise another rule and analyze the facts
again.

In addition, the conclusion should always be stated as a probable result. Courts
differ widely on a given set of facts, and there is usually flexibility for
different interpretations. Be sure to look at the validity of the opponent's
position. If your case has flaws, it is important to recognize those weaknesses
and identify them.

~Linda Christiansen

Conclusion - Take a Position

<the first sentences were not much alike>

If a rule does not apply, don't fall into the trap of being conclusive on a
party's liability or innocence. There may be another rule by which the party
should be judged. In other words you should conclude as to whether the rule
applies, but you shouldn't be conclusive as to whether some other result is
probable. In that case, you need to raise another rule and analyze the facts
again.

In addition, the conclusion should always be stated as a probable result. Courts
differ widely on a given set of facts, and there is usually flexibility for
different interpretations. Be sure to look at the validity of the opponent's
position. If your case has flaws, it is important to recognize those weaknesses
and identify them.

Funny thing is, according to the syllabus, she uses Turnitin.com (she explains
this in a section that ironically seems to have been copy and pasted in, but
it’s university boilerplate so I won’t split hairs).

When she defined
Plagiarism in the syllabus, she used this:

Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone else’s work, including the work of
other students, as one’s own. Any ideas or materials taken from another source
for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged, unless the
information is common knowledge. What is considered “common knowledge” may
differ from course to course.

a. A student must not adopt or reproduce ideas, opinions, theories, formulas,
graphics, or pictures of another person without acknowledgment.

b. A student must give credit to the originality of others and acknowledge
indebtedness whenever:

I did some looking into Turnitin by asking some professors I know that use it.
As long as someone is checking the report it spits out, it may be a helpful
extra tool, but I don’t trust automation for this completely (but I can imagine
there are some professors that do). Then again, I don’t trust human judgment
much either. I’d like to get an account on the services, but I’m cheap. If you
have one and you want me to send you some cooked essays it would be interesting
to see how they normalize Unicode (we would submit an uncooked one I wrote, then
a cooked version of my own work). Another research idea I have, along with a
Unicode homoglyph encoder, is to use some Google APIs to brute force the effort.
Have the tool take a string, parse it, mangle it, cut it in all sorts of ways,
and automate what I did by hand. Most of the code should already exist in open
source password crackers and web spiders, but of course I would give attribution
:). What I’ve not tried far is tossing these sorts of searches into closed
databases of periodicals like JSTOR (not free, but I can visit a university
library for awhile). Also, try your luck with Google Books.

The possible plagiarism I found is only in a syllabus, granted, but shouldn't we
expect more from people teaching a business law and ethics class, especially
when all they had to do was write a syllabus? Those in glass houses should not
cast stones (or ctrl-c apparently).

So, since I like roasting hypocrites, I contacted Indian University/IU Southeast
and here is what little I got back. Emails below were edited for spacing and to
avoid spam to the email addresses. I contacted the original authors, and Linda
Christiansen was not involved with any of the original works based on their
responses. I contacted Uric B. Dufrene, Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at
IU Southeast and got nothing back:

So, is there any comment, even
just an "it is under investigation"?
From the very same syllabus, if a
student had done the same thing,
they would have been instantly
failed.

Adrian

Well, technically I did get something back, an out of office
message from secretary Teresa Andrews. I also left messages on Facebook
pages related to IUS, and sent an email to IU Southeast's SGA and student
newspaper about it (and admittedly trolled Jay White on the issue using
Twitter). More crickets. My dialog to get more up to date syllabi was also
interesting:

Open Records Request10 messages

Adrian Crenshaw <irongeek(at)irongeek.com>

Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 9:39
PM

To: gcrecreq(at)iu.edu

Please see attached request form.

Adrian

--
"The ability to quote is a
serviceable substitute for wit." ~
W. Somerset Maugham
"The ability to Google can be a
serviceable substitute for technical
knowledge." ~ Adrian D. Crenshaw

Adrian_Crenshaw_Request_for_Public_Record_Form.png
137K

Adrian Crenshaw <irongeek(at)irongeek.com>

Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 1:56
PM

To: gcrecreq <gcrecreq(at)iu.edu>

Hello,

Just want to confirm you received
this. Also, I want the original
documents, not scans of printouts.
Nothing should need to be redacted.

Adrian

[Quoted text
hidden]

General Counsel Recrds Request <gcrecreq(at)iu.edu>

Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 3:43
PM

To: Adrian Crenshaw <irongeek(at)irongeek.com>

Mr. Crenshaw,

Yes we did receive your emails. Thank
you. Please see the attached letter from
Stephen Harper.

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This E-mail and
any attachments are confidential and may
be protected by legal privilege. If you
are not the intended recipient, be aware
that any disclosure, copying,
distribution, or use of this E-mail or
any attachment is prohibited. If you
have received this E-mail in error,
please notify us immediately by
returning it to the sender and delete
this copy from your system.

Crenshaw, Adrian_initial
response.pdf
159K

Adrian Crenshaw <irongeek(at)irongeek.com>

Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 3:49
PM

To: General Counsel Recrds Request <gcrecreq(at)iu.edu>

Thanks much.

Adrian

[Quoted text
hidden]

Adrian Crenshaw <irongeek(at)irongeek.com>

Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 8:39
AM

To: General Counsel Recrds Request <gcrecreq(at)iu.edu>

Hello,

Is there an estimate on when this
information will be available?

Thanks,

Adrian

[Quoted text
hidden]

General Counsel Recrds Request <gcrecreq(at)iu.edu>

Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 4:57
PM

To: Adrian Crenshaw <irongeek(at)irongeek.com>

Adrian,

The University is working to gather the
records you have requested. I do not
have a specific estimate as to how long
this process will take, but we will be
in touch with you as soon as we have
fully gathered and reviewed the
requested records.

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This E-mail and
any attachments are confidential and may
be protected by legal privilege. If you
are not the intended recipient, be aware
that any disclosure, copying,
distribution, or use of this E-mail or
any attachment is prohibited. If you
have received this E-mail in error,
please notify us immediately by
returning it to the sender and delete
this copy from your system.

Why did they send scans in a PDF instead
of the original word docs for Linda
Christiansen's?

Adrian

[Quoted text
hidden]

I never got an answer to why Jay White and Jon Bingham's syllabi were generated PDFs I could copy and paste from (as well as find metadata), but Linda
Christiansen's syllabi were printed out and scanned back in as a PDF format I
could not copy and pasted from (making searching for plagiarism harder) and with
the original metadata stripped. The original syllabus I had from Linda
Christiansen was a Word DOC, so why not send that if there is nothing to hide
(also, page formatting was a bit off from the one I had in class)? I did get
hold of a Research Integrity Officer for Indiana University, but sadly not
much could be done:

plagiarism allegation11 messages

Bizila, Shelley D <sbizila(at)iupui.edu>

Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 3:42
PM

To: "irongeek(at)irongeek.com" <irongeek(at)irongeek.com>

Dear Mr. Crenshaw,

My office recently
was forwarded a report you had made
regarding Dr. Linda Christiansen at IU
Southeast. By way of introduction, I am
the Research Integrity Officer for
Indiana University and my office handles
allegations of research misconduct which
includes allegations of plagiarism,
falsification and/or fabrication. I’ve
attached a link to our policy here:
http://researchadmin.iu.edu/Policies/ResearchMisconduct.pdf.
I’d like to speak to you regarding your
concerns. Please let me know your
availability for a brief phone call
sometime this week or next and let me
know if you have questions regarding the
policy or the role my office.

I am not at place where I can use a
phone right now so thought I’d email my
question(s). In specific, I am
responding to your charge of plagiarism
within, it appears from your website,
several syllabi from Dr. Christiansen’s
classes over a period of years. I am
trying to discern if there are any
research implications here since my
office’s jurisdiction over plagiarism is
confined to plagiarism in research and
usually syllabi do not meet the
definition of a research record in the
policy I reference below:

Research
Record.
Any data, document, computer file,
computer diskette, or any other written
or non-written account or object that
reasonably may be expected to provide
evidence or information regarding the
proposed, conducted, or reported
research that constitutes the subject of
a Charge of Research Misconduct. A
Research Record includes, but is not
limited to, grant or contract
applications, whether funded or
unfunded; grant or contract progress and
other reports; laboratory notebooks;
notes; printed or electronic
correspondence; memoranda of telephone
calls; videos; photographs; X-ray film;
slides; biological materials; computer
files and printouts; manuscripts and
publications; equipment use logs;
laboratory procurement records; animal
facility records; human and animal
subject protocols; consent forms;
medical charts; and patient research
files.

Do you think your allegations of
plagiarism involve any research
records? If not, I will work to
determine the appropriate non-research
path for this complaint.

Oh, he knows. He does not care other
than it being a nuisance to him. I've
caught him in lies/half
truth/misstatements before, he is more
interested in appearances than ethics.

Adrian

So, since it is not "Research", nothing can be done about it. Apparently,
plagiarism is ok at IU/Indiana University Southeast if you are tenured faculty
and it's only a business law and ethics syllabus. I did make Jay White aware of
it via Twitter, but complaining to Jay about Linda Christiansen's ethics and
hypocrisy is a little like complain about the Jeff Skilling's business ethics to
Bernie Madoff.

1/13/2014: I did an open
records request to get newer syllabi. It seems Linda Christiansen dropped the
most egregious plagiarism, the IRAC part. Some of the other items are still
there. It's interesting that she changed her definition of online etiquette
after I took the class, her new version makes it easier to fail students on a
whim. Also, the page spacing was different in the 2009 syllabus IU Legal sent
from the one I got in class, but the content seems the same (could be a PDF
conversion issue). One of the most suspicious things is, I also requested Jon
Bingham's (some of his syllabi seem to be updated from Dagney Faulk's syllabi
based on metadata) and Alan Jay White's syllabi, and they were given to me in
selectable text formatted PDFs that could be copied and pasted from. Linda
Christiansen's were printed out, and then scanned back in, so text could not be
easily copied and pasted (but OCR worked well for me). Is there any reason to do
this other than making it harder to check for plagiarism?